French and Bavarian infantry battalions there might be in the village, so densely were they packed. It reminded Steel with chilling closeness of that bloody Bavarian plain, and the little village which had given its name to the battle. There, down by the stream whose waters by the end of the day had flowed red with French blood, the enemy had filled Blenheim so full of men that when the allied assault had come they had not been able to manoeuvre or to fight. Perhaps, he wondered, the same fate might befall them today? Either that or they would hold the village and it would be the attackers, including Steel and his Grenadiers, who would be the ones to suffer and die on the barricades.
Marching on, towards the village, they soon found that they were walking past and often, from necessity, on top of the bodies of the redcoats who had fallen earlier in the day attempting to take Ramillies. It was not a sight calculated to raise the spirit of an assault force. Particularly when any of those who were not actually dead reached out and grasped with desperate hands at the ankles and calves of those who now went in to the attack. Twice Steel watched as one of his company stamped upon the face of a wounded man in an attempt to shake him off and saw Slaughter move to help by using the wooden shaft of his halberd.
Now the French artillery had got their distance and the roundshot began to fall a short way to the front. Within seconds though the red-hot metal was tearing its way into the ranks. They must advance as the book commanded: ‘As slow as foot can fall’. He knew that his men could deliver their assault at a run, but this way they would keep the equilibrium of the other battalions. To his left he saw Argyll, on foot at the head of the brigade, turning occasionally to shout encouragement and urging his officers to keep pace with him. At thirty yards out a puff of white smoke rippled along the line of the village defences and seconds later the musketballs ripped into the bodies of Steel’s men, tossing them back like puppets in a dance of death. Instinctively they lowered their heads against the storm and pressed on. At the same time the French artillery on the ridge overlooking Ramillies opened up with canister shot, each projectile spraying out a deadly hail of tight-packed iron balls into the face of the oncoming infantry.
It seemed to Steel as if his whole world were collapsing; his command ebbing away in a sea of blood. He looked around and saw to his front the distant figure of the Duke of Argyll. The general was almost at the barricades now and the Grenadiers of his leading battalion, Borthwick’s, Steel thought, were up with him. Close by to his left Henry Hansam was screaming obscenities towards the French lines as he pushed on towards the village. Ten yards out now and closing.
Steel cast a glance to his rear and gave the command which he hoped would be heard: ‘Uncap your fuses.’
He saw Slaughter, his halberd pointing at an angle towards the enemy, yelling at the men, repeating his order and pushing them on. Looking back to his front, feet moving automatically one after another, he saw the village grow closer. The French line spat out another deadly volley but Steel remained unscathed. He heard Hansam cry out and saw him grasp his arm. He smiled at Steel, mouthed that it was only a scratch and walked on. Five yards out. Three.
This was it. Steel half-turned his head to the rear and shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Halt! Blow your matches!’
The company came to a stop as the Frenchmen, seeing with horror what was about to happen, rushed through the motions of ramming home their musketballs. It was too late.
Steel smiled and shouted the final command: ‘Throw … grenades.’
With an easy motion the company hurled their bombs in an overhead action, full-toss directly into the French line. The fuses had been cut to perfection and no sooner had the grenades landed among the tightly-packed enemy than they began to explode. Steel watched awestruck as the shards of metal casing ploughed through the French, mangling flesh and bone and sending men and parts of what had been men in all directions. Looking to the left he could see that the Grenadiers in the centre of the brigade had met with similar success. As the smoke began to clear he saw Argyll climb atop one of the barricades, sword in hand. Steel watched as the duke was struck first by one musketball, then another, but miraculously did not seem to be harmed.
‘Grenadiers. With me.’
There was no time for the bayonet now and Steel’s men knew it. Forgetting the slung fusils across their backs, each of them reached to his side for the short infantry sword carried for just such an assault as this. Then, baying for blood, they climbed the parapet and crashed down upon what was left of the decimated French defenders. Directly in front of him a dark-skinned French infantryman, his off-white coat covered with blood, sank to his knees and begged for his life. Steel walked past him but hardly had he passed than he heard the familiar hiss as behind him a Grenadier drew his sword up into the man’s chin and through the teeth. This was no time for mercy. In his immediate vicinity most of the defenders appeared to be in flight. Ahead and slightly to the right, up a narrow street Steel could see the church and before it a mass of redcoated infantry, standing in two lines, facing him: it looked like the best part of two companies. Their coats were trimmed with yellow and above their heads floated a silken colour. A red cross on a white ground – English. As he watched, from a street to the left of the redcoats there emerged another body of men. They wore dark blue coats and Steel recognized them as Dutch. At their head he could see quite plainly now the figure of Major van Cutzem. How the devil the man had managed to reach the centre of the village before Argyll and Steel, God only knew, but there he was, code of chivarly and all. But Steel’s annoyance turned to amusement as he realized that the Dutch officer’s moment of glory was about to be stolen by the fact that the village had already been occupied by a regiment of English foot.
He called to Slaughter: ‘Best watch this, Jacob. It would seem that our friend Major van Cutzem is a little late. He hasn’t taken the village. He’s been beaten to it. Now we’ll see some sport.’
The sergeant peered down the street towards where the two units were standing opposite one another beside the church. His laugh turned to a gasp of horror. ‘Christ almighty. It’s not a bloody argument he’s in for, sir. Look at that standard. They’re not Englishmen, Mister Steel. Those men are Irish.’
Steel looked again at the device on the colour. He had missed something. But there was no mistaking it now. A red cross on a white ground, and there, in its centre, a gold harp. This was no St George’s Cross, but the flag of an Irish regiment.
‘We’ve got to warn him, Jacob.’
But his words were lost. It was over in an instant.
As they watched the densely-packed Irish infantry opened up against the bemused Dutch with a well-timed and precise volley. For a moment the street was obscured in white smoke. When it cleared Steel felt sick to the stomach. The Irish volley had ripped into the uncertain Dutch at such close range that hardly a musketball had not found its mark. Fully three score of the Dutch infantry lay dead and dying on the cobbles and there at their head Steel could see the unmistakable, blond-haired figure of Major van Cutzem.
Slaughter spat on the cobbles: ‘Poor bugger. He can’t have realized.’
‘So much for bloody chivalry.’
The Irish gave out a cheer, but they did not pursue the retreating Dutch survivors. This was impressive stuff. They looked as if they meant to stand and if the allies were to secure this place, Steel knew he would have to take the fight to them.
‘Tarling, Hancock, Mackay. Each of you find ten men and follow me. Sarn’t Slaughter, find the others, and Mister Hansam. Tell them we have business at the church.’
With the thirty men following close behind, Steel moved quickly up the street towards the red-clad infantry, who held their fire. He could see the colour more clearly. A white ground bearing a red cross; yellow facings and a red cross – Irish Jacobites. He knew these men now: Clare’s regiment. Dragoons originally, now converted to a regiment of foot. Their commander was the exiled Viscount Clare, Charles O’Brien. Steel had known O’Brien once, in what seemed now a previous life, before the Jacobites had charmed the young Irishman across to their ranks with talk of the right of kings and divine monarchy. Then they had both been younger. Two impressionable ensigns of foot, fighting the French in a place called Neerwinden where the river fed down to the sea